A wide-ranging conversation with Joe Nocera

December 1, 2016

New York Times reporter Joe Nocera and I taped this interesting episode of the Pickens Podcast shortly after our joint appearance at the Texas Tribune Festival. This is a wide-ranging conversation with a little focus on natural gas.

For a recent Times article, Joe and I talked about how I approach risk – and how I have my whole life. In this podcast, Joe asked me about the effect of natural gas selling for about $2.80 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf). When we started the Pickens Plan back in 2008, it was at $12.70 per Mcf.

If we could have gotten the NatGas Act passed back in 2013 and 2014, which provided a tax credit – not a subsidy – for truckers to move to natural gas, we would be sowing the fruits today.

One of the biggest problems we face is that there is not a single point of responsibility for energy policy. We have a Department of Energy, but we also have the Commerce Department, State Department, Interior Department, EPA, Congress, and the White House, all of which have a say in different segments of oil exploration, imports and exports, production, refining, and transmission.

I think you’ll find this conversation interesting and fun. It’s also a good summary on where we have been and where we are now on energy.

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